Edge of the Rain

by Beverley Harper

  She looked around. ‘It’s got a kind of serenity.’

  Trees, taller than most, threw shade on areas which appeared to have been cleared at some stage. Gaps in the bush allowed a view off to the west. In the wild hard land that made up the eastern edge of the Kalahari, the little glen had a softness, as though the hand of God had gently passed by, bestowing a calming effect on the rugged wilderness.

  ‘Come.’ He held his hand out to her and she took it. He led her up a slight rise, along a shaded grassy path.

  ‘What is this place?’ Old ruins of several buildings lay in crumbling neglect.

  ‘This is Kolobeng. David Livingstone built his mission and school here.’

  ‘My God!’ She rubbed her hand softly across a fallen, hand-hewn rock. ‘Are you sure?’ she whispered. ‘It feels like angels walk here.’

  He could see the place was having the same effect on her as it always did on him. The enormity of where they were standing always filled him with awe.

  ‘I wasn’t always sure. But a couple of months ago I found something else.’ He tugged on her hand and she followed him. ‘Just down this path there’s proof.’

  The tiny graveyard was overgrown. Little wooden crosses leaned sideways. No writing remained on them. There was no clue as to who was buried there. Then he pointed out the granite headstone. Like the others, it was leaning crazily sideways but, unlike the others, the stone had been carved. He moved towards it.

  ‘Wait.’

  He turned his head. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, Alex. Come away, please.’ She had gone white.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He squeezed her hand.

  ‘Can we go somewhere else?’

  So they drove about a mile, to a shaded spot where a permanent creek crossed the road and grassy banks provided excellent picnic places. He had packed a hamper and borrowed a blanket and he led her to a flat piece of ground which gave them a view of the creek through the trees but was sufficiently off the road so anyone passing would not know they were there. He fussed over her, poured some wine, sat down next to her and said, ‘Talk to me, Chrissy. Why do you shy away whenever I talk about our future?’

  ‘That little grave. It was a child wasn’t it?’

  He wondered if she was stalling again but she had seemed so affected by the sight of the cemetery that he let it go. ‘It was one of Livingstone’s children. You can read the dates. A girl. About three.’

  ‘Poor little thing. To be left out there alone like that. It doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘You said yourself, the place has serenity.’

  ‘I know,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s just so wild and lonely.’

  ‘She’s happy . . . you can’t feel sadness there, just peace and love. Good things took place there. The land reflects it.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘!Ka taught me to respect my instincts.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I felt peace there too. It just seemed wrong to disturb the place.’ She shrugged and looked down at the rippling water in the creek. ‘I don’t know, sort of like sacrilege.’

  He handed her a glass of wine. ‘Okay, sweetie, time’s up. Talk to me.’

  She looked at him for a long moment. ‘You have the most beautiful eyes,’ she said finally.

  Now she was hedging. ‘So do you.’ He would not let her off the hook. His eyes locked on hers.

  ‘I love you very much.’ She sipped her wine.

  ‘I love you very much too. That’s not what I mean.’

  She dropped her gaze.

  He reached over and cupped her chin in his hand. ‘I want to marry you, darling,’ he said softly.

  Her eyes refused to meet his. ‘I’m too old for you.’

  ‘Five years?’ He grinned. ‘I like older women.’

  She smiled. At last, she looked directly at him again. ‘I won’t marry you, Alex. One day you’ll know why. Please, can we leave it at that?’

  She had sadness in her eyes. He felt it strongly. It made him afraid. ‘Why, darling?’

  She jumped up and went and stood near the water, her arms folded. ‘I have my reasons.’ She did not look around as she spoke. ‘They’re very good reasons and you will know about them soon. I promise.’

  He rose and went to her, putting his arms around her. She leaned into him. ‘You do love me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Yes, Alex. I love you more than I thought possible.’

  !Ka had taught him, ‘When you want to hunt the buck, you find a place to sit and let him come to you. That way, he will not know you are there. If you try to go to him you will lose him because your impatience will scare him away. It is better to wait a long time and have meat in your cooking pots than to wait a little time and have none.’

  !Ka’s wisdom was seldom wrong. ‘Okay, Chrissy. I can wait.’

  She turned and held him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘You have no idea how much I love you for that.’

  He kissed her and tasted the salt of tears.

  FIFTEEN

  Alex looked around the table at the serious black faces. They had listened courteously as he outlined his plan. Timon Setgoma particularly had paid attention, nodding approval at several points. Alex was glad of that. Timon was attached to the newly formed Ministry of Local Government and Lands and, as such, was very close to the Minister, the Hon. Lemmie Makgekgenene.

  This meeting, the culmination of eighteen months’ work, would see the make-or-break decision on his proposals. He had worked long and hard, learning as he went. When he started he believed it would be easy—working to help his San friends would be fulfilling and enjoyable. He did not anticipate the frustrating delays, the hurdles which had to be jumped one by one or, in one instance, disapproval of his scheme so intense and from such an influential individual that the scheme nearly failed in its infancy. There were times along the way he nearly gave up but Chrissy had encouraged him to continue.

  Immediately after Marv and Pru’s wedding, Alex and Chrissy, at his suggestion, moved into a three bedroomed house in The Village. With independence around the corner, expansion of Gaberones sprawled in every direction in anticipation of the flood of expatriates and the migration of rural Batswana to the country’s new-look capital city. The original village of Gaberones was immediately, though unofficially, called ‘the village’ to set it apart from the brash new developments scarring the surrounding bushland. Alex found a lovely old double brick building with large rooms, high ceilings and an established garden. Chrissy agreed to the move, claiming she had never been happier. Alex gave her the space she obviously needed and rarely mentioned marriage but, in his heart, desperately hoped that by living together she would change her mind about marrying him.

  He set up an office in one of the bedrooms and went to work. Britain had still not accepted the new constitution which had been put together by Seretse Khama and Quett Masire, but the entire country was buzzing with excitement that an acceptance was just around the corner and that it would lead, in time, to full independence. Until Britain did accept the constitution, however, policy decisions simply were not being made. Bechuanaland, despite feverish expansion activity, was in limbo.

  He went into the desert and found !Ka. It was important to Alex that !Ka understood the principles of the project and accepted them. !Ka’s reaction had been typical.

  ‘When the clever old man jackal wakes from sleeping he looks to the sky. When he sees the vulture he follows it for he knows it will lead him to food.’

  Alex had nodded.

  ‘The vulture is a hunter, like the jackal.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘The vulture does not always wait for death to come before he feeds. He has nothing in his heart and very often hunger in his belly.’

  Alex nodded again.

  ‘The jackal has a plan in his heart which fills his belly.’

  Alex could see where !Ka was leading him but he said nothing. To ruin !Ka’s punchline w
ould have been unforgivably rude.

  ‘Am I a vulture or a jackal?’ !Ka asked, smiling.

  That was !Ka’s approval. In his own roundabout way he had compared the San with the clever old man jackal who filled his belly by using the skills of others, rather than the vulture who cared not for the suffering of others and sometimes went hungry. It was not a definite yes but Alex knew that !Ka, like most of the San, would at least give his scheme a try.

  Convinced it was only a matter of time before Bechuanaland gained independence, and wanting to be ready with a full feasibility study when that happened, Alex returned to Gaberones and got to work, using his own funds to finance the scheme. Finding a starting point was easy. The San were limited in skills which could be used commercially so any project had to revolve around existing talents, at least in the early stages. Artifacts could be made by the clans as they went about their daily existence and would not affect their way of life dramatically. They made all manner of things as part of their gift-giving culture. Up until now, however, they used only those materials which came to them in the course of their day-to-day struggle to stay alive. When a buck was killed, the meat filled San bellies, the skin was used for clothing and the bones and horns made into utensils. The Bushmen never took more than they required and this trait had to be preserved at all costs.

  The first problem, therefore, was how to provide the San with materials in general, and animal skins in particular, so that their respect for the balance of nature was not altered in any way. Not only would this have disastrous effects on nature itself, but by encouraging them to take more than they needed for their own survival, it would eventually destroy the clans’ unique culture as well. The second problem was how to remunerate them. The wandering people of the Kalahari had no use for money. Introducing cash into their lives would also destroy their way of life as they came to learn how a money economy worked. Their gift-giving and bartering systems were deeply entrenched into their culture. If it were undermined by capitalism, Alex knew other values would quickly fall. So his scheme not only had to put forward viable suggestions as to how best to supply the clans with materials to make curios, but how best to pay them as well.

  Initially the problem of supplying skins led him up a couple of blind alleys. When he first started work on the project he intended that the clans use traditional materials to make their artifacts. Game Department, keen to assist, agreed to give him first refusal on any animals culled in the newly formed Chobe and Moremi Game Reserves. This guaranteed a steady supply of skins certainly, but skinning, cleaning, salting and drying them before transporting them vast distances to the Kalahari was a major problem. He was attempting to address this difficulty when he discovered that, in any event, the importation of curios made from skins prepared roughly in the bush would be refused by most other countries.

  Realising he had a lot to learn and still keen on using skin from game animals, he investigated the possibility of farming impala, springbok and duiker near Lobatse. The abattoir in Lobatse would buy the animals, sell the meat, send the skins to South Africa for professional tanning and these could then be imported back into Bechuanaland and used by the clans. No go! The Bechuanaland Protectorate Abattoirs, together with the Livestock Producers Trust, were negotiating with the European Economic Community for a ninety per cent levy abatement on beef exports. The EEC, with its strict requirements in health and hygiene for exported meat, would not allow the abattoir to be used for anything other than cattle.

  Next, he investigated the possibility of having a small abattoir built which would process meat from farmed game animals. He visited a similar enterprise in South Africa, only to discover that while an abattoir’s needs are modest, an abundance of water is essential. The Lobatse abattoir was already stretching that town’s water supply to the limit. A second abattoir there was out of the question. To site an abattoir anywhere else in the country was impossible. Water to handle the anticipated population explosion was already causing the town planners headaches. He looked briefly at the Okavango Delta as a possibility but quickly rejected the idea. It had the water certainly but it was just too far from anywhere and the road system was rustic to say the least. While he was still tackling this problem he also learned that, in any case, so far, no-one was successfully farming game animals with the possible exception of gemsbok. In a farm environment, the animals refused to breed.

  Reluctantly, he came to the conclusion that the only economically viable supply of skins would have to be cowhide, of which there were considerable quantities. The Lobatse abattoir shipped all wet skins to a South African tannery. He investigated the idea of buying wet skins and setting up a tannery within Bechuanaland. The idea had potential and he drafted a proposal giving facts and figures which he might include with his feasibility study but if not, could be an addendum to the main project and earmarked for inclusion once the scheme was up and running.

  Then he hit an unexpected snag which almost halted the entire project.

  The tannery, he decided, should be sited in Molepolole. Nicely situated between the desert where his craftsmen lived, the abattoir which would supply wet skins, and rail links with South Africa where the finished products would be sent, Molepolole was perfect.

  The Chief of Molepolole had other ideas. He was still angry that Alex had lied about his reason for requesting the use of land in the desert. He didn’t trust Alex and didn’t care who knew it.

  For centuries, the eight chiefs and five sub-chiefs within Bechuanaland enjoyed ultimate authority, recognising no-one above them. They were rulers, judges, makers and guardians of the law, holders of wealth, dispensers of gifts, leaders in war, priests and magicians. Such was their power that even the zealous, and often misguided missionaries who arrived in the nineteenth century realised the way to convert the masses was to first convert the Chiefs.

  The Molepolole Chief, using his considerable influence, vetoed the plan, spread rumours about Alex and, before long, had several other Chiefs on side. Their argument was valid. The new Botswana should direct its energies and aid money to the bulk of the population, not to a handful of nomadic little Bushmen who probably didn’t want help anyway.

  In desperation, Alex went to see Her Majesty’s Commissioner, Sir Peter Fawcus. He was a very busy man and Alex had to wait ten days before an appointment could be made.

  ‘I’ve heard about your scheme,’ Sir Peter said briskly before Alex was even seated. ‘Like to discuss it fully with you some time.’

  Alex opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘Not today,’ Sir Peter went on. ‘Too much to do.’

  ‘The Chief . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry about him. You go ahead. Things are changing.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘The world has only just become aware of the San. Mark my words, young man, you’ll get your aid money.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Now if you’ll excuse me.’ Sir Peter rose, smiling slightly. ‘I have another appointment.’ He pressed a button on his desk, held out his hand and, as his secretary came through the door said, ‘Show Mr Theron out, there’s a good girl.’

  Alex shook his hand. ‘The Chiefs . . .’ he tried again.

  Sir Peter frowned at him.

  ‘Please come with me, Mr Theron.’

  He was out of the door two minutes after entering the room.

  ‘I got six bloody words out,’ he exploded to Chrissy that night. ‘He thought I was worried about aid money.’

  ‘He said things were changing didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s supposed to make me feel better?’

  She patted his arm. ‘He probably couldn’t say too much but I’ve heard the Chiefs will lose a lot of their power. Keep the faith, darling, you’re getting there.’

  If it hadn’t been for Chrissy he’d have dropped the project there and then.

  Marketing formed another major part of his study. African curios were gaining popularity around the world but no-one had ever heard of Bushmen art
ifacts. He spent months collecting as many San items as he could. Reed mats and baskets, clay pots and vessels, decorated ostrich eggs, bows, arrows and spears, drums, thumb pianos, beaded and woven bracelets and anklets, necklaces, animal skin products of all types, and items made from the bark of trees filled his office. ‘What are you planning to do with all this?’ Chrissy asked.

  ‘I’ll need a catalogue. It will have to be professionally done. Paul knows someone in Johannesburg who specialises in catalogues and who will, for a small fee of course, come up with a layout. I’ve arranged to meet him.’

  ‘It’ll cost a bomb.’

  ‘I know. But I have to have it.’

  Before he could commission the production of a catalogue he needed to work out prices and before he did that, he had to negotiate with the clans some method of paying them without corrupting their ways with actual money.

  ‘Clinics,’ he said to Chrissy. ‘I know there’s venereal disease among the San. It was brought back to this country by men working in the South African mines. It’s almost an epidemic in the adults.’

  ‘I’m surprised they haven’t figured out a way to get rid of it. They’re pretty cluey about most things.’

  ‘This is different. They don’t understand how it came to them. It’s an introduced disease and therefore alien. !Ka believes it is yet another way the white man has tricked them, and in a way he’s right. As well as that, because it’s a foreign thing he says the desert cannot provide something which can help them. That’s the way he thinks.’

  ‘Would they go to a clinic?’

  ‘It won’t be easy to convince them at first but, once they see how they can be helped I think they’d go.’

  ‘What if our modern medicine takes away their natural resistance to other things. I mean, there’s virtually no heart disease or cancer among them. Antibiotics would surely upset the natural balance.’

  ‘I know.’ He scratched his head, worried. ‘But where do I draw the line, Chrissy? Today they’re dying of gonorrhoea, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever and leprosy. Trachoma is a huge problem. Their teeth are generally bad and God help their children if measles ever catches up with them. The kids have no resistance at all to measles.’